Concord Transcendentalists and the Legacy of John Brown

This quarter-plate daguerreotype is by the Boston team of Albert Southworth and Josiah Hawes, considered among America's preeminent photographers. At the time Emerson was the nation's foremost public intellectual, though he largely refrained from discussing political issues. He was intrigued by the new medium of photography, warning its practitioners, "Do not call yourself an 'artist-photographer' and make 'artist-painters' and 'artist-sculptors' laugh; call yourself a photographer and wait for artists to call you brother."